


we'll show the fire how to burn

by answerstobefound



Series: how to light your life on fire [1]
Category: Home Fires (UK TV)
Genre: Adultery, Canon Lesbian Character, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 10:30:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/answerstobefound/pseuds/answerstobefound
Summary: Teresa Fenchurch was a fairly good liar. Teresa Lucas is convinced she could lie to the King himself without blinking on a good day.or: "how to light your life on fire: a guide by teresa fenchurch-lucas"





	we'll show the fire how to burn

**Author's Note:**

> me: doesn't write more than 500 words in my two other ongoing fics for five months  
> me: binges series 2 of home fires in a day and writes nearly 2000 words in two hours
> 
> I'M UPSET, OKAY!!? (and i'm working on that cophine 1950s au i promise)
> 
> title is from the ben howard song "the fire"

Teresa knew that she shouldn’t have married Wing Commander Nick Lucas. She _knew_ , in her heart, from the minute the girls began talking about how they realized their husbands were Their One– maybe even from the minute Nick proposed, through all her foolish hope that she could be happy enough with him– that she should have broken it off and gone home to Alison and hidden there forever. But Teresa let herself think she could pretend to be an average English wife to an average English man and feel perfectly fine about lying every day of her life.

 

Teresa regrets saying yes. She regrets accepting his proposal, regrets letting Alison talk her into giving him a chance, even regrets dancing with him that afternoon that started the whole unfortunate chain of events.

 

And she never regrets it more than the moment Annie Carter, Lady Pilot of Teresa Fenchurch’s Wildest Most Lesbian Dreams, presses Teresa into the wall of the hallway in her own home and kisses the living daylights out of her. With Annie’s chest pressed against her own, Annie’s tongue in her mouth, Annie’s hand sliding from Teresa’s waist to the small of her back, _that_ is when Teresa regrets marrying Nick the _absolute_ most.

 

* * *

 

Teresa brings Nick’s dinner to his office. She knows he’ll be working late, and she wants to do something nice for him. She does as many nice things for him as she can, atoning for guilt over a mental crime he does not know she is committing simply by being married to him. He never suspects a thing.

 

Teresa Fenchurch was a fairly good liar. Teresa Lucas is convinced she could lie to the King himself without blinking on a good day.

 

She brings him dinner so he won’t have to eat the awful food the canteen serves– if the canteen is worse than her own cooking, it’s truly horrendous– and he thanks her. She perches on the edge of his desk, kisses him, feels nothing at all, and asks him how his day went. He tells her how the new recruits are coming along and the letters he had to send off today. She describes to him, in detail, how her students are excelling in their reading, and he listens to her with an awed look on his face, like he can’t quite believe she’s really in front of him.

 

Teresa wishes he wouldn’t look at her like that. Sometimes, she wishes that he had some sort of glaring fault so she would have a reason to be unhappy that wasn’t her own doing.

 

But he continues to stare at her and smile at her, whether she’s looking at him or not, until there is a knock at the door, and Nick’s back straightens, the smile dimming slightly. Teresa slips off his desk as he calls for the visitor to enter and goes to stand behind him, a hand on his shoulder.

 

It’s only Annie, come to say hello to Teresa and tell Nick that she’s clocking out for the night. Nick asks Annie if she would mind escorting Teresa home– it’s gotten dark while they chatted and neither realized– and Annie, kind and chivalrous as she is, of course, accepts, and Teresa screams just a bit in her mind.

 

Teresa kisses her husband goodbye and leaves with Annie, whose arm brushes against her own and sends goosebumps down Teresa’s spine as they walk in perfect step and make idle conversation. Annie asks how the garden is doing. Teresa comments on Annie’s new boots. Annie compliments Teresa’s lipstick shade– a newer, lighter color she’s trying out on Nick’s recommendation– then says she misses the dark one Teresa used to wear, and Teresa blushes so completely that her cheeks tingle with heat.

 

They arrive at Nick’s home– Teresa does not think of it as _their_ home in the way she still thinks of Alison’s house as her home– and Teresa invites Annie in for a cuppa or even something stronger. They drink from Nick’s expensive brandy together, loosening and laughing and lingering longer than they should, until it’s gone midnight. Nick will be home any minute, and they both know it, so Annie stands and smiles at Teresa, who follows her wordlessly into the hall to see her out.

 

“Thank you for seeing me home safely, Miss Carter,” Teresa gives Annie a smile that means something it shouldn’t, means something she’s supposed to have forgotten– something dangerous. Annie looks away for a moment, and Teresa worries she’s crossed a line, until Annie steps into Teresa’s space and takes Teresa’s waist between her hands. Teresa’s skin _burns_.

 

“I shouldn’t do this,” Annie whispers in the strange half-light of the dark hallway combined with the brightness falling in from the lamp in the living room.

 

“For the love of God, please do it anyway,” Teresa chokes out. She almost wants to cry, to scream, to do _something_ , until Annie twists them both, pushes Teresa into the wall with a light _thump,_ and presses her mouth to Teresa’s.

 

And this is in no way friendly. This is not the playful peck that Alison and Teresa shared at New Year’s, nor is it the sweet kiss that Steph planted on Teresa on a late night when she forgot she wasn’t bidding Big Stan goodnight. This is unfortunate and purposeful. This is desperate lust.

 

Teresa whimpers as Annie presses harder, moans as Annie’s arms wrap around Teresa’s waist and squeeze her, and she regrets, regrets, regrets. Teresa lets her impulses take over in a way she hasn’t been able to in years, untucking Annie’s shirt so she can run her hands over the impossibly smooth skin of Annie’s back. Annie responds– or maybe retaliates– by hiking Teresa’s dress up with one hand to pull Teresa’s thigh up, all without removing her mouth from Teresa’s. Only once Teresa hooks her leg around Annie’s does Annie move her lips to gently kiss a spot on Teresa’s neck, which turns her into mush in Annie’s strong arms.

 

Annie keeps a hand under Teresa’s thigh, stroking the bare skin she finds there with rough fingers, and finally pulls her mouth away, breathing heavily.

 

“Your husband could be home any minute,” Annie says, voice full of regret. Teresa knows regret well and is entirely fed up with it when she replies,

 

“We’d better be quick then.”

 

Annie grins wickedly as she pulls Teresa back into the living room and playfully pushes her down onto the couch. Teresa lands with a bounce and allows her legs to fall open. Annie takes advantage the opportunity presented to her by kneeling in front of Teresa, pushing her dress up to her hips, and pulling her already soaked underwear down her legs. Teresa heart is pounding, chest flushing, when she tells Annie, “get on with it, please,” and then a high, desperate, “oh God,” as Annie’s tongue goes to work. Delicate, precise, brutal work.

 

Teresa forgot how much she missed this, forgot how intoxicating it was to run her hands through the hair of a woman with her head between her legs. She forgot what it was like to really, _really_ enjoy sex.

 

And Annie is a master at work with her tongue, humming in time with the movements of two, then three, fingers, until tears slide down Teresa’s cheeks. She comes less than a minute later, gasping Annie’s name, clenching over and over around her fingers and curling down towards her.

 

Annie brings Teresa back down to earth with one last, long lick of her flattened tongue against Teresa’s clit, bringing a final spasm out of Teresa, before she winds a hand through Teresa’s hair, pulling just slightly at the back, and kisses her with a messy mouth.

 

Teresa lets a few more tears fall before she wipes them away, slightly embarrassed with herself, and thanks Annie quietly. Something in Annie’s eyes breaks just slightly at that, and she presses a series of light, sticky kisses all around Teresa’s face after.

 

“Don’t thank me, love,” Annie presses a final kiss to Teresa’s mouth, so tender and different to Nick that Teresa wants to bury herself in Annie’s arms and cry enough tears to drown her fiery heart, but Annie takes Teresa’s hands and pulls her to stand upright instead.

 

Teresa has Annie balance on the arm of the couch while she fucks her with two fingers of her right hand, keeping her left hand behind Annie’s neck in an attempt to fuse their lips together. And Annie doesn’t last long at all. After, Teresa takes great pride in the way Annie inhales sharply and fumbles with the buttons on her pants as Teresa sucks her fingers clean.

 

They finally make it back into the hallway. Annie kisses Teresa hotly, and it hits her low in her gut in a way that makes her want to consume Annie like a fire. This is a woman she could burn her life down for, Teresa thinks as Annie licks into Teresa’s mouth. Annie pulls away before Teresa can remember where she keeps the matches.

 

“I’ll see you around?” Annie asks, a lazy, mournful smile overtaking her face. She already knows the answer to her question.

 

Teresa kisses Annie one last time, very sweetly, and her heart flutters behind her ribcage. “You know where to find me.”

 

Annie nods once, flashes a smile that says she knows she has brought a terrible thing to life, and shuts the door quietly behind her.

 

Teresa flips the lock and tidies the living room of any evidence of Annie's extended stay– pocketing her own still wet underwear and putting away the brandy glasses. She takes these moments to herself before she allows the weight of her actions to crash down on her conscience. Tears well in her eyes again, but these are not tears of happiness. These are more guilt to keep Teresa awake at night while her kind husband sleeps soundly beside her.

 

Guilt… but no more regret than before.

 

Teresa takes a deep breath and climbs the stairs, planning to quickly wash herself in the bathroom. She can’t smell like sex and strange perfume when Nick climbs into bed. Teresa cleans herself up and hurriedly changes into her nightgown, and she just gets into bed when she hears the front door open. She manages to slow her breathing enough to pass for unconsciousness when she hears footsteps on the landing, then the sound of Nick undressing for bed.

 

Teresa turns away from him and buries her face in her pillow. She manages to drift off to sleep just as she feels a heavy weight carefully drop onto the other side of the bed, the only thoughts in her head being about where she can meet up with Annie next and who she might be able to ask to cover for her. She wonders where her morals might have gone, and is promptly lost to the world until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: cheating is a Really Terrible thing to do to someone, and i'm not condoning teresa cheating on nick AT ALL! writing a fic about it does not equal condoning. at the same time, you gotta feel for her, ya know? she's terrified and lonely and gay.
> 
> ANYWAY please leave a comment if you liked this because positive responses really fuel me to write more! or hit me up on tumblr @ gay-holtzy if you wanna talk about home fires because right now my mom is the only person i know who watches the show, and she doesn't agree with my headcanon that joyce is a lesbian and in love with frances. dammit mom!
> 
> thanks for reading!!


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